Homeschool Highlights: Week 31 & 5K: Week 3

Our week started out strong and then 3 of us (myself included) got some sort of 24 hour flu. It hit real fast and was not fun. So Monday was an official sick day this week. Somehow, we still managed to get 4 relaxed days in this week.

Our 5K corner: Language and Thinking: 

The first set of activities are from the "Language Games" section of Ruth Beechick's book that I mentioned in my 1st K post).

• Traffic vocabulary: Traffic Signs and Driving Words: We talked about them at home and then went for a drive and talked about all the traffic signs and markings on the road.
• Listening skills: Mystery Sounds

I gathered up a tub of things that would make a sound, blind-folded Malachi, and then had him listen for sounds and guess what they are.

This was a lot of fun and he was stumped on several of them. We will hopefully play a variation on this game this coming week.

• Following directions: Where's the Bear?, Simon Says & Silly Simon

Where's the Bear? is a preposition game where you hold up a teddy bear or another object and give the child directions for placing the object (under the chair, between the pillows, over the desk, etc.). There are several variations of the game mentioned in the book and both Mali and Elli enjoyed this game. We had fun playing Simon Says. First I gave simple commands (Simon says touch your nose) and then I added more detail to the commands (Simon says touch your nose and blink your eyes). We also played a variation of the game called Silly Simon. In this game, if I give a silly command that is not possible (Simon says walk on the ceiling) then the kids would shout, "Silly Simon!" I got lots of giggles out of this one. I definitely plan to continue using this book!


Language Arts:

• Explode the Code: 2 pages in lesson 1
• I Can Read It Lesson 1: Pat, the Rat, & Nat, the Cat
• Handwriting: lowercase family 3: arch (n, h, m, r)
• All About Spelling: Phonogram cards with his brothers

I pulled out the Getty-Dubay basic italic wall chart and put 2 arch letters under the clear plastic table cloth to use with a Wiki Stick activity pack that I bought last summer.

Then Mali wanted to make a house.

Eliana wanted to play too. I think she did a great job on her house.

She wanted to make a letter, too.

She was so pleased with herself. *Ü*

Math:

For math, we worked on recognizing numbers to 20. I had Mali work from his Kumon Numbers to 30 book. We put this book aside last year, but I discovered that the dot activities are perfect for number recognition.

Malachi is learning to see how many are in a group without counting. To do this, I usually use objects he can manipulate. I group them together and have him name the number. This is as far as we got this week. On Wednesday, he began the lessons at Time 4 Learning (for review) and that is what he and Elli did the rest of the week. They completed the Pre-K level 1 together and is Mali is currently working through level 2. Mali and Elli started their third swimming session this week, but due to sickness, we only made it to 2 of the 4 days this week. I am a little concerned about them being in the chlorinated water so much. Malachi is developing a red rash on his face that I think is from the chlorine. (I think the Y pool chlorine levels are too high). Honestly, I hate to even bathe them in city water. I can smell the chlorine when I fill the tub. I just keep thinking that they are learning a life saving skill. I asked Elli what she wanted to do for Tot School, and she told me that she wanted to feed ducks. So, we went to the river to see if we could see any. We left the bread crumbs sitting on the counter at home, but we didn't get close enough to them anyways.

We saw several wild ducks along the river where the ice was thawing.

They did not like me getting close to them.

Jordan came with us and did a nature sketch.

(I'm too tired tonight to scan his sketch, but I may add it later). My 3 older boys plugged away on their independent work and I read to them from our history read aloud, Tirzah. Sometime during the middle of the day on Monday (when Nathan, Elli and I were sick) I regretted telling Nathan and Dylan not to do another chapter in their math book. Dylan was actually mad at me. He more than made up for it though. By the end of the week he had worked ahead in his math. Nathan and Dylan started Life of Fred: Fractions this week. They were pretty excited to see what made Jordan suddenly start liking math again. I was hoping to have them move slowly through it - but what I had planned to take 2 weeks only took Dylan 1 week. I wasn't sure that they would be ready, but Dylan scored 8/10, 8/10, 9/10 and 10/10 on his first 4 bridges. He chose not to do the last bridge. They have to get 9/10 to pass, but I take their 2 best scores. Dylan's mistakes were silly mistakes so I talked to him about working slowly and checking his work. (Dylan has a tendency to work really hard and then burn out, so that is why I try to regulate what he does). Nathan followed my scheduled plan, so he will do his bridges next week. Jordan took his science test yesterday and finished General Science Module 4. Instead of a quarterly test for modules 1-4, we will play Jeopardy (from the files at the Yahoo group). Other than that, we just plugged along with our regular studies and did some review work. I have several reviews coming up and will be working on getting those out this week, so I will save my update on what else we have been doing for the reviews. I am actually looking forward to (and needing) a Spring break. I am feeling quite overwhelmed with house cleaning and activities going on, that I need life to settle down for a little while.

Delightful Links:

The Preschool Corner